


The Mer-Creature

by hero_of_the_wild



Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass (2007)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:35:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23749255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hero_of_the_wild/pseuds/hero_of_the_wild
Summary: Eleanor Thisby has just lost her father-- the only person who truly understood and loved her. He has left her with nothing but the houseboat they shared, and Thisby does her best to continue on life without him. After a major flood, Thisby is tasked with searching the rivers for any lost souls that may have been swept away by the churning waters-- but who she finds is not exactly human.
Kudos: 1





	The Mer-Creature

It was the day that the floodwaters finally retreated that Thisby and her dæmon found the mer-creature.

After weeks of incessant rain thundering onto the wooden roof of her houseboat, Thisby was awakened by the jarring silence. Her breath clouded in front of her as she sat up, pressing her fingers to her numb nose. Setric stirred, emerging from his usual spot at the crook of her elbow. He stretched out his wiry limbs, cat-formed, before becoming a violet-throated hummingbird and alighting upon the curtain rod that separated her bunk from the rest of the boat.

“Has it finally stopped?” he trilled.

Thisby slid her feet into the worn slippers beside her bunk, pulling aside the curtain. Setric buzzed over to sit on top of her head, burrowing into the warmth of her ginger hair. She shuffled across the wooden floorboards to the stove, where the last few remnants of coal glowed a pale orange. Thisby shivered as she shoveled more, noting with some relief that there was still enough for two more days. The rain couldn’t have stopped at a better time.

The main room of the houseboat was simply furnished; there was a massive oak wardrobe that occupied the space beside the steps to go abovedeck, and the enormous bed covered with a patchwork quilt that used to be her father’s. It wasn’t without a slight pang that she smoothed the quilt; he hadn’t been dead for a year yet.

There was a mirror inside the wardrobe; Thisby glanced at it to smooth down some flyaways before pulling on her rubber-lined coveralls and the massive oilskin coat that hung inside. Setric watched her with one beady, dark eye—she could sense his excitement.

“What is it?” she asked flatly.

“Don’t you remember what day it is?” Setric asked, ruffling his feathers. “It’s our birthday.”

And so it was—she’d forgotten completely. “How old are we now? Twenty-one?”

“Twenty-two, I think.”

Thisby pulled on a pair of thick, woolen socks before putting on her rubbers. “I couldn’t think of a better birthday present.”

Before opening the hatch, Setric shifted to a large, reddish moth and clung close to the warmth of Thisby’s hair to protect himself from the biting winter air.

Grey greeted Thisby’s gaze as she emerged from the houseboat that had been her prison for the past two weeks. The sky was still dark with stormclouds, and nothing but opaque, brackish water surrounded her, seeming to go on forever. Thankfully, the anchor she’d dropped had held; the signpost of the marina where she moored was still visible a few metres away. Her rowboat, too, had survived the worst, still attached to the houseboat. Thisby found herself thanking her father for choosing to purchase a houseboat instead of a proper house; the endless sea of floodwater was dotted with smaller boats and the steeples of roofs.

“Ho there! Thisby!”

She turned towards the sound of a chugging engine. It took her a moment to make out who it was, for he had grown a beard: Mayor Charles Tuppinger, colloquially known as Tup. With him too, directing the boat, was Crow, a young Skræling man who was about her age. His cougar dæmon held her head up proudly, laying right in the centre of the boat as she surely was heavy enough to capsize it.

Thisby tipped her chin in their direction as their boat pulled alongside hers. Tup’s dæmon, a puffin, clacked her vibrant beak at Setric in greeting, and he grudgingly fluttered to Thisby’s shoulder to acknowledge her.

“It’s wonderful to see you in good health, my dear,” said Tup, stroking his ragged white beard.

“What brings you here, sir?”

Tup’s ragged eyebrows went up. With rising shame, she realised she had done it again—that is, saying the wrong thing, or being so blunt as to be impolite.

“Well… mainly to ensure your safety. After all, you are alone out here now. My condolences once again.”

Thisby nodded, pressing down on the plume of grief that threatened to emerge.

“We also came to ask for your help,” said Crow. Thisby was surprised to hear him speak; in fact, she wasn’t certain that she’d ever heard him say a word before. She regarded him curiously, taking care to avoid meeting his intense gaze.

As the only pair in the village close in age, Thisby had always assumed that she would end up marrying Crow. He was an attractive man, she supposed, with dark brows and a compact, muscular body. But when her father had passed away, he had never made any arrangements for Thisby’s marriage; not even a dowry. Crow met her eyes—she immediately looked away as Setric nervously fluttered his wings.

“Aye,” said Tup. “We’re asking all villagers who’ve got a boat to spare to help scour the river for anything—or anyone—who might’ve been washed away. I see yours is a rowboat. I can send Crow here along with you if it’s too difficult for you to—”

“I can manage myself, thanks.” Too blunt. “Thank you for offering. I wouldn’t own a boat that I couldn’t handle.”

“Quite practical, Miss Thisby.” The mayor inclined his head as his dæmon clacked her beak. “We aim to meet back at the church spire by two o’clock today.”

“I’ll be there, sir.” She inclined her head towards Crow, who remained implacable, but his dæmon slowly blinked her tawny eyes. As the boat chugged away, Setric’s moth wings tickled at her ear.

“He’s an intense sort, isn’t he? Can’t say I care for him much—nor his dæmon. Seems like she might just eat me whole.”

Thisby agreed silently, climbing into the rowboat as it rocked perilously from side to side. There were still rations backed in an oilskin bag under the bench, and the oars had remained where she had lashed them into place when the rains began. Thisby breathed onto her already-numbing fingers, wishing for a pair of gloves, and locked the oars into the tholes. She had a broad, muscled back and calloused palms from years spent inside this boat, and she enjoyed the hard, monotonous work of rowing after weeks spent belowdecks. She cast off, and Setric settled at the prow of the boat, cat-formed once again, his keen eyes peering into the mist.

…

The water grew clearer the further from town they traveled—through Setric’s curious eyes, Thisby became aware of the stone paths leading to the well several feet beneath them, flanked by now-useless sandbags. The flooding was already beginning to recede here; it was only chest-high for her. Hopefully, she thought with a grimace, she would not have to abandon her rowboat and wade just yet.

Duncan was a coal-mining town, situated at the base of a rather large, sloping mountain—the river mouth began at the northern side, winding through the rainforest before reaching the town limits and joining the ocean. The trees thickened the closer they got to the base of the mountain; many had collapsed entirely, pushed down by the raging stormwaters. Setric changed into a black crow, soaring nervously above the trees and eyeing a large log that had been tossed into the upper branches of a robust pine.

“Keep left,” he called down, in his croaking birds’ voice. “There’s a rocky outcropping coming up.”

Thisby complied in silence, pushing her oar against the drowned earth to turn. Setric, of course, did not need to speak to her—they were one being in two bodies, his thoughts also hers. They had passed most of their childhood without a word, only speaking when her father asked a direct question. Even then, Setric had done most of the talking; her father’s dæmon, Cadha, used to tease that a faery had taken her tongue when she was a bairn. Since they had passed away, the silence had been unbearable, and she was glad for Setric’s voice to fill it.

The silty water grew shallower still. She had stirred up the ground too much with her oars; it was impossible now to see to the bottom.

“What now, Setric?” she called to her dæmon. “Should I get out?”

“Yes! You’ll run aground soon!”

Careful not to capsize the boat, Thisby removed the oars from the tholes, placing them under the bench before hopping out into the water. She gritted her teeth as the cold hit her, but the rubber lining of her coveralls did its work at keeping water out. She doggedly sloshed after her dæmon, guiding the boat through the trees, and that was when she saw the pale, crumpled shape of a drowned person.

At least, that’s what she _thought_ it was. Setric swooped down, alighting onto her shoulder in hummingbird-form and pressing his quaking body against her neck as she approached. Thisby blinked, and for a moment, the white corpse was her father’s corpse, laying withered in his bed, his hand still clenched where it had been buried in Cadha’s fur.

“No,” she said aloud, and the image was gone.

“Thisby, please don’t,” Setric begged. “Just leave it—”

“Setric, they’re alive.”

Now that she was closer and had recovered from the initial shock, the person was still breathing. They were deeply entangled in a twine net—the arms were slightly purpling below where the netting was wrapped most tightly. Their hair was long, dark, and knotted, and they seemed to have a deep wound by their throat—how they were still alive, Thisby figured, could only be an act of God.

“Thisby,” Setric groaned, shuddering. His disgust and horror traveled through their psychic link, but the sheer force of it momentarily kept her from understanding why.

This person had no dæmon.

Setric swooned, changing to the smallest vole form he had ever taken as he fainted; Thisby caught him, cradling him in her hands as her stomach turned. It was the stuff of nightmares, tales of ghasts—in the swirling morning mist and eerie sunlight filtering through the rainforest, Thisby felt as though she ought to wake up any second. But the person did not disappear.

“I have to help them.”

Saying it aloud galvanised her—she tucked Setric into the pocket of her coat, swallowing hard as she knelt beside the sodden, naked girl. She _was_ a girl; Thisby could see that clearly now. Her skin was tinged faintly green where the circulation was not cut off, and her hair stank of rotting fish. Strangely, the wound in her neck, although pink, was not bleeding—the flesh around it was not jagged or torn. If it wasn’t so impossible, Thisby would have called it a gill.

The twine was too tight for Thisby’s fingers to deal with. Setric, with his ability to become small and sharp of tooth, would have been able to make quick work of it were it not for the taboo keeping dæmons from physical contact with other humans. But the longer Thisby gazed upon her sallow complexion, the impossible gill… the less convinced she was that this girl was entirely human.

“She might be a witch,” whispered Setric, who gingerly climbed free of her pocket. “Could we be in trouble with the Church for helping a witch?”

“I think we might be in worse trouble if we _didn’t_ help a witch,” said Thisby matter-of-factly. “Fetch the boat. We’ll take her to the mayor and she won’t be our problem to handle.”

Setric, with some effort, took the shape of a duck toller and swam over to the boat, standing on his hind legs and pushing it towards her with his front paws. Thisby was strong, but still grunted with the effort of lifting the girl; she was slippery, and the last thing Thisby wanted to do was drop and perhaps hurt her. She laid her on the bottom of the boat as dignified as she could manage, shedding her oilskin coat to lay over her naked form to protect her from the elements and intruding stares of the villagers back home.

It was also easier to row, she found, and ignore the sickening wrongness of the missing dæmon when she did not have to look at her.


End file.
